22 Mar 2020 ART Professionals Share Info for Surrogates, Intended Parents Navigating COVID-19
I was honored to participate recently in a national surrogacy professionals COVID-19 webinar designed to share information and best practices to help surrogates and intended parents plan and cop during the crisis. ...
21 Mar 2020 Is COVID-19 a Risk to Pregnancy, Surrogates and Newborns? NEW INFO
As the states of California and New York impose stringent shutdowns and concerns about travel restrictions and postponed procedures rise, intended parents and surrogates are also asking about potential health risks to pregnant surrogates and babies during the coronavirus disease COVID-19 pandemic. ...
20 Mar 2020 More COVID-19 Pregnancy Information for Intended Parents, Surrogates
Here is more information for intended parents and surrogates about the coronavirus disease COVID-19 and what experts are saying about its potential impact on pregnancy. Thanks to our colleague Dr. John Norian of HRC Fertility for sharing this informative Q&A, much of which is drawn from...
10 Mar 2020 Worried Surrogacy Is Exploitative? Try Talking to A Surrogate!
As sometimes happens, I had one of those days recently during which events seemed to highlight for me some of the most critical issues in the field of assisted reproductive technology (ART) law today. I traveled out of state a few days ago for a series...
14 Feb 2020 New York Continues Push to End Surrogacy Ban as New States Enact Them
Governor Andrew Cuomo is standing by his commitment to eliminate the three-decade ban on commercial, or compensated, surrogacy in New York, one of two states in the nation that currently criminalize surrogacy. On February 11, Cuomo and advocates for reproductive freedom launched the “Love Makes A...
10 Feb 2020 Surrogacy Education Down Under Kicks Off IFLG's 2020 Travel Plans
I was excited and honored to have the opportunity to speak on U.S. surrogacy laws at two Growing Family conferences on February 8 in Sydney and on February 9 in Melbourne, Australia. Both full-day conferences were parent-curated surrogacy education events designed to provide potential intended...
15 Jan 2020 Uterus Transplant Donors Motivated to Give Gift of Motherhood
Pennsylvania researchers celebrated recently the birth of a healthy baby boy to a woman who received a uterus transplant from a deceased donor—only the second successful procedure and birth of its kind in the United States. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the mother, Jennifer Gobrecht, learned...
02 Jan 2020 Cuomo Vows to Take on New York Surrogacy Ban Again in 2020
In advance of his January 8 state-of-the-state address, Governor Andrew Cuomo has promised to renew his efforts to end New York’s statewide surrogacy ban in 2020 and to provide the strongest protections for surrogates and intended parents anywhere in the U.S. Cuomo and other progressive legislators...
03 Oct 2019 Slow-Moving Irish ART Law Reform Would Severely Limit Surrogacy
Ireland, the traditionally Catholic country where surrogacy has existed for decades in a legal limbo, with no laws on the books, is slow-walking a badly needed overhaul of its reproductive technology laws. With the Irish legislature, the Oireachtas, at odds over historically divisive issues such...
14 Aug 2019 Utah Supreme Court Strikes Statute Denying Surrogacy for Gay Dads
“This appeal comes to us unopposed,” reads the first sentence of the Utah State Supreme Court’s August 1 decision striking down a statute that denied same-sex married couples equal rights to participate in surrogacy agreements automatically afforded to married heterosexual couples. In a rare sign...
25 Jun 2019 Commission Takes First Steps Toward Ending UK Surrogacy Ban
Great news out of the UK! The UK Law Commission—the body that reviews outdated laws and recommends revisions to the UK government—has made provisional recommendations for reforming the United Kingdom’s surrogacy and parentage/citizenship regulations to better protect the rights of families created via assisted reproductive...
18 Jun 2019 Left Blocks Bill to Overturn NY Surrogacy Ban
Even as it approaches the finish line, legislation to finally end New York state’s ban on gestational surrogacy is facing vocal opposition from an unexpected source: the feminist left. We began writing about growing expectations that the state of New York was progressing toward ending its...
12 Jun 2019 Italy Backtracks on Recognition of Twins' Non-Biological Dad
For more than two years, we’ve been following the case of two Italian dads, a gay couple, who became parents of twin boys via egg donation and surrogacy in Canada, a Canadian birth certificate listing both dads as legal fathers in hand. After years of legal...
19 Mar 2019 Movement to End New York Surrogacy Ban Advances
New York advocates for reproductive freedom report progress in their efforts to end the state’s nearly three-decade ban on commercial surrogacy agreements. Despite ongoing organized opposition from far-right and anti-choice forces, on February 27, 2019, the New York State Assembly Judiciary Committee approved The Child Parent...
27 Feb 2019 Judge Rules Twins' Citizenship Not Contingent on Genetics
Amid so many gravely concerning headlines about immigration recently, at least one immigration story had a happy ending last week: A federal judge overturned the government’s earlier decision to deny U.S. citizenship to a twin boy born via IVF and surrogacy—while granting citizenship to his...
18 Nov 2018 Surrogacy Bans Coming Down in Netherlands, Michigan, New York
Colleagues in Netherlands celebrated this week the news that at least two Dutch IVF clinics plan to open their doors in 2019 to same-sex couples who want to become parents via surrogacy without the difficulty and expense of traveling abroad to do so. The news, first...
15 Nov 2018 NAPHSIS Identity Documents Panel Informs Vital Records Agencies, ART Attorneys
The identity documents required to establish parentage in California, where your baby was born via egg donation and surrogacy, may be different than what you will need if you move to Alabama or New York. Likewise, parents who travel from other countries for surrogacy in...
25 Jul 2018 Israeli Government Continues Surrogacy Ban for Gay Dads
Tens of thousands of LGBT Israelis and their allies took to the streets Sunday, protesting a new Israeli surrogacy law that denies gay men the right to become parents via surrogacy, even as it gives the green light to lesbian intended parents and single women. Israeli...
01 Jun 2018 New Jersey Surrogacy Law Ends 30-Year Ban
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy just signed a law legalizing gestational carrier agreements, effectively lifting a 30-year ban on surrogacy in the state. Passage of S482, the “New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act,” is a milestone for reproductive freedom in the state that was home...
06 Mar 2018 Washington Legalizes Compensated Surrogacy
Congratulations to Washington State, which just became the first state to enact UPA 2017, the updated Uniform Parentage Act for use by U.S. states as uniform legislation for parentage laws, including the parentage of children born via assisted reproductive technology. The new law, signed by...